On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained his decision to offer aid to Iran in light of the deadly earthquake that rattled the region earlier this week. “As a father, as an Israeli, as a Jew, I wanted to help,” he said. “We will continue to offer sympathy and support to victims, no matter where they’re from, even if their regime and their governments do not care for them as much as they care to hate us.”

In a video message uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained his decision to offer aid to Iran after the deadly earthquake in the region and slammed the Iranian regime for immediately rejecting the offer.

“My heart sank when I saw pictures from this great earthquake on the Iranian-Iraqi border,” Netanyahu explained. “I saw mothers and fathers searching for their children, children buried under the rubble from this horrible earthquake. As a father, as an Israeli, as a Jew, I wanted to help.”

“That is why yesterday I instructed that Israel offer medical aid via the Red Cross to victims of this disaster,” he continued. “Israel has no quarrel with the people of Iran. We never have. Our only quarrel is with the cruel Iranian regime, a regime that holds its people hostage, a regime that threatens our people with annihilation.”

Watch: Netanyahu slams the Iranian regime

Netanyahu then went into detail about Israel’s well-documented history of sending humanitarian aid to countries around the world in the aftermaths of large-scale disasters. He even mentioned that Israel has treated thousands of Syrians who were injured in the civil war.

“We do all this for one reason: we do it because it is the right thing to do,” he explained. “Too many times in my people’s history, the world failed to act when it could, the world failed to do the right thing. So we have a special sensitivity to help those in need. And today, Israeli technology and medicine is saving lives around the world.”

“We will continue to offer sympathy and support to victims, no matter where they’re from, even if their regime and their governments do not care for them as much as they care to hate us,” he stressed. “We care. This is Israel.”